Neb on 14/5/2021 at 21:54
I drowned so many times and there never seemed to be one of those plants around when I needed them, and I must've also been unlucky with the vehicle designs. Just one more piece for the vehicle constructor thingy.
WingedKagouti on 16/5/2021 at 00:15
I've been plunging the depths some more and explored some of the topside stuff. The story is progressing at a reasonable pace and I've managed to find a lot of useful upgrades for my vehicles including an electric defense for the seatruck.
I may or may not have chased down various aggressive fish and repeatedly shocked them in retaliation for attacks.
henke on 16/5/2021 at 13:02
Sea... TRUCK?
Wait why am I wasting my time with regular Subnatica when I could be experiencing SEATRUCK!?
WingedKagouti on 16/5/2021 at 16:56
I honestly think the Cyclops (massive sub) from the original is a better truck than the Seatruck, which is more or less a Seamoth with some extra options that will slow it down.
nicked on 17/5/2021 at 16:35
It's a truck in the sense that you make a cab, and then can make optional "trailers" to plug onto the back. One of the trailers can hold a prawn suit, which sounds like it'll be pretty useful if I can find another one to scan anywhere...
Also, I can report that the bowel-loosening terror of the first game is still in plentiful supply. I thought I was discovering a time-saving route around an island, turns out I was heading out of the map area entirely. Before I know it, I'm entering an "ecological dead zone" and something grey and awful is looming out of the inky depths to take a bite out of me. I gave a little gasping shriek that was panicked enough that my fiancé came in from the next room because she thought something terrible had happened.
However, I've only actually died once so far... of hypothermia (in 21hrs of playing). I'm not sure if the game has a more gentle learning curve, or if I'm just more familiar with the systems from the first game. By this point in Subnautica 1, I was probably on my 50th respawn.
WingedKagouti on 17/5/2021 at 17:26
Quote Posted by nicked
It's a truck in the sense that you make a cab, and then can make optional "trailers" to plug onto the back. One of the trailers can hold a prawn suit, which sounds like it'll be pretty useful if I can find another one to scan anywhere...
It's certainly a useful module for getting the Prawn to and from some locations (including where you find the fragments for the module), just like the Cyclops' Vehicle Bay in the first game, but it has no recharge or repair function.
Quote Posted by nicked
However, I've only actually died once so far... of hypothermia (in 21hrs of playing). I'm not sure if the game has a more gentle learning curve, or if I'm just more familiar with the systems from the first game. By this point in Subnautica 1, I was probably on my 50th respawn.
I died once in 23+ hours of playing so far (forgot to pay attention to distance & route to nearest air supply), and from my experience the entire map is less dangerous outside specific areas with large roaming predators (which you obviously have to visit for story reasons). The aggression of "small" roaming predators also feels scaled down compared to the ones in the original, they still have a range where they'll attack and chase but it feels like you don't have to keep as much distance. There's even one type of predator that will flee upon getting hit once with the knife (the data entry says they're cowards).
Even then, unscripted jump scares are not uncommon if you're not paying attention to everything.
WingedKagouti on 22/5/2021 at 21:30
Finished Below Zero.
Overall I would recommend it if you want a bit more Subnautica after finishing the core game. The story offers new perspectives on what happened in the original while also being a personal journey for the new protagonist. It is a shorter and much more contained experience with fewer biomes, the surface stuff felt forced but most of the time is still spent underwater. You can at least skip the surface vehicle and just bring a Prawn on land, the devs even expect you to do so with many ore deposits that can only be mined by the Prawn.
nicked on 8/6/2021 at 07:37
Also finished Below Zero the other day. Looking at my Steam play-time, it wasn't much shorter than the original, though I wasn't rushing and spent plenty of time doing things like painting my base different colours.
What I liked about it was the more involved story, and the protagonist being a proper character rather than a cipher; the sense of exploration, fear of the unknown, and well-paced progression was all intact from the original game. Some of the new creature designs were amazing, and you can feel a real love for biology and science coming through in some of the scanner descriptions.
It definitely smaller in physical size to the original game, though I've not done a map overlay comparison or anything; the on-land stuff is not as fun to explore, mainly I think because the on-foot movement has always been a bit barebones and clunky compared to the underwater movement. Nothing has changed on the engine side at all since the first game, and that feels like a missed opportunity to give the basic controls, animation etc. a bit more polish.
Also, while the characterisation is more engaging here, the actual plot feels a tad disjointed, and sort of fizzles out rather than reaching a satisfying conclusion.
If you liked the original, you'll find a lot to love here, but it is ultimately just more of the same, rather than recapturing the lightning in a bottle of the first game.
Where can the series go from here? I would love to see a coop version of this experience - there is ample opportunity to do interesting things with it - imagine one player piloting a large sub while another sits in a co-pilot seat and uses a remote scanner, for example. Or one person baiting a leviathan so that the other can scan it without being eaten. One person works on base blueprints while the other farms the resources to build it. I don't think it could be tacked on to the existing single-player experience, but as a new concept, I could see a lot of value in it.
bob_doe_nz on 8/6/2021 at 08:11
There is one sort of over Nexus Mods for the original Subnautica.
Quote Posted by nicked
Where can the series go from here? I would love to see a coop version of this experience - there is ample opportunity to do interesting things with it - imagine one player piloting a large sub while another sits in a co-pilot seat and uses a remote scanner, for example. Or one person baiting a leviathan so that the other can scan it without being eaten. One person works on base blueprints while the other farms the resources to build it. I don't think it could be tacked on to the existing single-player experience, but as a new concept, I could see a lot of value in it.
Thirith on 8/6/2021 at 10:05
I could imagine something like the first Subnautica (I've not yet played Below Zero) working in coop with relatively minor changes - and I would absolutely love it. Obviously you'd lose some of the sense of isolation (which is why I'd probably not go above four players), but even then, I think the strongest moments could still work as strongly. And seeing your coop mate fade into the murk below could be quite powerful.
